Kay Isberto

Dear Devastated Justices,

I hope that that the reporters of a national newspaper were exaggerating when they described Your Honors as being “devastated” over the appointment of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes A. Sereno. One of you was even quoted as saying that she “lacked the moral ascendancy to lead the judiciary.”

I am not surprised that none of you were identified in that news article. All of us are free to guess who were “devastated” based on who did not attend Chief Justice Sereno’s oath-taking last Saturday in Malacañang. But that is not why I am writing.

I am writing because I would rather believe that the reporters who wrote that article are desperate for an intriguing story angle and that it is possible that Your Honors who were interviewed were just misquoted. After all, even as a law student, I was led to believe that justices of the Supreme Court are close to superhuman when it comes to reigning their feelings in and not sharing what they felt about their work with anybody. I believed then, and still believe now, that the job of a justice is to consider the facts and the law and to decide based only on both. It should not matter who the litigants are and it certainly should not matter how they feel about another justice. You took an oath to obey the Constitution, and as far as I know, under the Constitution, the duties of a Justice do not include hiding under the cloak of anonymity and saying nasty things about a colleague.

I also continue to believe that the decisions of Supreme Court Justices should speak for themselves. Obviously, I would never believe that Supreme Court Justices would vent about the new Chief Justice in a newspaper owned by the publicist of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Not only would that would be too crass and cheap and pathetic, that would also be violative of the oaths they took as lawyers and justices.   I know that these canons of judicial conduct remain applicable now: “Judges shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of their activities.” “Judges, like any other citizen, are entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly, but in exercising such rights, they shall always conduct themselves in such a manner as to preserve the dignity of the judicial office and the impartiality and independence of the judiciary.”

I would rather believe that Your Honors share the wish of majority of the Filipinos to have a competent and trustworthy judiciary and that you will support Chief Justice Sereno in her plans to make it so. Just like the late Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo, she symbolizes integrity, courage, and hope. With the opinions that she written as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, she has shown that she is not beholden to President Noynoy Aquino who appointed her (she voted against the Hacienda Luisita stock option plan and voted for land distribution) and that she is independent and is not afraid to speak the truth, even if it hurts another justice. Her dissent in the plagiarism case involving a Supreme Court Justice is well-reasoned and in my view, the correct one.

While it is sad that apart from Chief Justice Sereno, no other person who was nominated for the Chief Justice post could inspire hope that a competent and trustworthy judiciary is still possible, I am grateful that there was at least one and that she was appointed Chief Justice. A judiciary sullied by the recent impeachment of Renato Corona needs all the help it can get to restore the Filipinos’ trust and belief in it. “Devastated” justices have no place there. We trust that Your Honors know that.

A hopeful Filipino

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